Don't Be Afraid by Daniela Sacerdoti

motions. Angus was there with me, murmuring words of encouragement and looking after me, sweet as a mother. I had a long, hot shower to wash the hospital smell off my skin, the water flowing over me like a cleansing waterfall. I noticed that there was a new set of soaps there, white with cinnamon sticks and mint leaves and bits of orange skins worked into them – I recognised Anne’s handiwork, my old school friend. She must have sent them while I was at the hospital. It seemed to me that Glen Avich had found a way to show it had not forgotten me, even in my self-imposed exile. Tears started prickling behind my eyes, and then fell silently, now that Angus couldn’t see me. Weird how when you’ve come so close to death, something like the scent of homemade soap is such a blessing. I’m still alive to feel this, my body whispered.
    I sat at the window seat in my bedroom and I switched on my laptop. I was scared of phones, but I was okay with computers. Weird, I know.
    Dozens of emails from Emer, panicking because of my silence. Oh God, I really hurt everyone who loves me, don’t I?
    I switched it off without replying. What was I supposed to say? Hi Emer, so lovely to hear from you, I tried to kill myself ?
    I looked outside, resting my head on the windowpane. It felt cool against my cheek. The view was so familiar I could have drawn it with my eyes closed. Angus had plugged my hairdryer in and laid out the brush that had been my mother’s. He was as thoughtful, as loving as ever – but he would not meet my eyes. Every time our gazes linked, he looked away, he busied himself with something else.
    Maybe he couldn’t look my despair in the eye, it was too painful for him, or maybe he was angry and he couldn’t show me, he didn’t want me to see.
    I didn’t blame him for being angry. I had everything: I had his love, friends, a beautiful home and a job I adored. But I had fallen anyway.
    I had fallen into the black hole.
    Could I climb out? Would I be able to do that? I had to. I couldn’t leave Angus broken the way I was.
    But the other day, when downing the orange pills had seemed the only option left, thinking of Angus hadn’t been enough. Just the opposite: it seemed to me that he would have been better off without me, that I was doing him a favour. It really felt that way.
    â€œBell, listen, I’ll just give Torcuil a phone and see if he can get some stuff in for us. I completely forgot to buy food and Morag doesn’t seem to have left anything edible . . .”
    I managed a little smile. Morag’s taste in food was an inside joke between us: she bought blocks of fatty cheap cheese and anaemic sausages, long-life milk, chemical sliced bread, a bottle of ketchup. And tinned peaches, for vitamins.
    â€œWhat did she get?”
    â€œCampbell’s mushroom soup and a can of haggis.”
    â€œNice.”
    â€œYes. So I’ll just give him a phone, and if it’s okay with you to see him . . .”
    â€œIt’s okay. You go and get food. I’ll be fine, I promise. I mean, I’d love to see Torcuil, but there’s no need to send him to the shops.” I was embarrassed. A healthy young woman, so dependent on others she couldn’t even face a supermarket. She couldn’t be left alone for a moment in case she did something stupid.
    How did this happen?
    My gaze went past the loch to the familiar cluster of grey stone that was the Ramsay estate. I couldn’t see the stables and the horses from our house, it was too far – there, behind the crest of dark trees, lay the Ramsay stables, such a big part of my lost happiness. I’d loved horseriding. Before .
    But my greatest loss was just above my head: my attic studio, where I used to work. I hadn’t been up there in months.
    It weighed on me in a way that was also physical; it hurt so much sometimes I felt I nearly couldn’t raise my head.
    If someone had told me